That makes no sense. You're theorizing that we mostly stay within our cultural boundaries for the next two hundred years, yet accents would somehow change...
And Chekov and Scott of the Abramsverse disagree with that theory.
The lack of national diversity in the Discovery cast...
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That makes no sense. You're theorizing that we mostly stay within our cultural boundaries for the next two hundred years, yet accents would somehow change...
And Chekov and Scott of the Abramsverse disagree with that theory.
There it is again: assuming you know what it WOULD sound like. You actually have no idea, and neither do the producers or the actors. And neither do we. Because language, vocabulary, grammar and dialect evolve over time in sometimes surprising ways. Current linguists, for example, aren't really sure how to describe the english accent used by American and British citizens around the time of the revolutionary war, except they can conclude that it doesn't sound ANYTHING like the accent spoken by the two separate countries today, and that is equally true of Australia. Because language changes over time.
They speak in contemporary styles right now because it's more important for the audience to clearly understand what's being said than for the depiction of linguistic evolution to be accurate. Partly this is because it's a scifi drama and dialog is paramount, but mostly it's because nobody has any idea what an accurate future dialect sounds like so we all just pretend and move on.
We DID, for the most part, stay within our own cultural boundaries within the LAST two hundred years... and our accents still changed.
The internal forces shaping cultural and linguistic evolution do not require a great deal of influence from outside. Most of the time it just takes a dramatic shift in circumstances for one set of pronounciations to shift and fall in/out of style in favor of another. I can't think of any set of circumstances more dramatic than global thermonuclear war followed immediately by the discovery and timely intervention of alien life.
Hell, I'd be kind of surprised if English vocabulary in the 23rd century didn't borrow a shit ton of VULCAN words, mangle the pronounciation and then smash them together into a set of bizarre pormanteaus whose exact meaning depends on which side of the Rocky Mountains your parents are from.
For that matter, why are we assuming the language we're HEARING is even accurate? For all we know the primary language of Starfleet is actually a combination of Madarin Chinese and Russian and we've all been hearing a "hunt for red october" translation this entire time. And why does Marco Rameus speak English with a weird Irish accent? Don't fucking ask, nobody knows.
As a guy who works with native Russian speakers on a daily basis, I don't think they do. Yelchin's Russian accent is kind of interesting in that it's not really a Russian accent... I don't know what the hell it is, but it's still interesting.
Arguably TOS did it better than the following shows.
Uhura was given an African name and dialogue in Swahili. Geordi was supposedly from Africa, but there was absolutely nothing African about him culturally. After this, all the black characters in Trek were either explicitly American (in the case of the Siskos) or implicitly of American origin based upon their name and lack of any African cultural signifiers.
Or hell, look at Scotty and Chekov. They were the only cases where North American cast members in Trek faked a non North American accents for their roles. After that, cast members either spoke in their natural accent, or in Discovery actually dropped their native accent to sound more American.
Again, it's not about the accents (although it is weird that they bothered to have Isaacs and Latif both speak in American accents). It's about the following:
1. Everyone is given very "Anglo" sounding first names.
2. Only Stamets and Lorca have non-English last names. And since Stamets is based upon a real scientist with the same name, presumably otherwise his character would be given some boring last name like "Carter," "Smith," or "Jackson."
3. The few clues to backstory given for the human characters all point to American origin. Ash Tyler is explicitly from outside of Seattle, for example, and Lorca's family ran a fortune cookie business.
Admittedly we are still very early on in the show. We might find out Stamets is German, for example, or that Burnham's biological parents were from Guyana or something. But as others have noted, this is the first Trek series which has been launched globally at the same time as domestically, so it seems a strange oversight to make it the most American-seeming crew to date.
Out to fight for truth, justice and the American way!
da da da da da daaaaaa da da da da daaaaaaaa da da da da daaaaaa!
Which is why I wrote that actors can play other nationalities, as has been done, and keep their own accents. Post 318!
Examples below:-
Uhura - East African
La Forge - African
Picard - French
Crusher - off world Scottish colony
Yar - Russian?
Where's the spandex in the short pants?
Okay, I'm confused... what, OTHER than their accents, leads you to believe all of these individuals are actually American/Canadian or anything? Michael Burnham is from the colonies, so her nationality could be just about anything. Captain Georgiou is probably meant to be Chinese, same as Michelle Yeoh. Most of the rest of the (human) crew could be from just about anywhere for all we can tell. Hell, even Tilly could easily be an Australian girl without the accent.
That was Isaac's choice, apparently. His character is inspired by American war movies, so of course he's doing the accent too.
That might actually be one of the reasons for the Americanization of his character. Lorca is described -- and depicted as -- kind of a warmonger, and in the international consciousness there are few things more warlike and more prone to unnecessary violence than an American.
Weirdly, this is another case where I must point out that Captain Georgiou is being played by a Chinese actress who goes by the name "Michelle."
And "Ash Tyler" is possibly the most American sounding name I have ever heard in the history of ever. It sounds like the alias of an ex porn star who's trying to find work as a crossfit instructor. If he turns out to be Voq, it would be the least surprising thing ever... but then, he wouldn't really be an American character in that case, right?
Which leads to another interesting question I don't know that we've asked: are the character names even the same in the international broadcast? It has become increasingly common for non-english dubs of American movies and TV shows to sort of "translate" character names into something more common and organic to their target audience (note the reverse trend in the 80s, how "Hikaru Ichijo" becomes "Rick Hunter" in the Macross Saga).
The German translation has all the same names as the original.
Jason Isaacs has said explicitly that the accent was his idea. He did not want Lorca to be English because Patrick Stewart had done that. He went with southern American because so many of the soldiers he met in prepping for the gazillion times he's played them were southerners. Isaacs is very good at accents and probably could have done it any which way, but if he had tried to give the character a Latino accent it would have been distracting and weird even if he did it well.
I've read nothing about why Shazad Latif isn't using his natural accent. There's no reason Tyler couldn't have come from London. I think his American accent is fine, but I totally agree that everyone having an American accent is a little dull.
I liked listening to Michelle Yeoh.
I've read nothing about why Shazad Latif isn't using his natural accent. There's no reason Tyler couldn't have come from London. I think his American accent is fine, but I totally agree that everyone having an American accent is a little dull.
I liked listening to Michelle Yeoh.
May I ask? Can Star Trek claim to be a show about future humanity working together and getting over their ancestors, barbaric petty prejudices?
Is that why we have Discovery showing how war works? Get yourself the best tactics, the best technology, exploit other sentient beings and pat yourselves on the back for destruction and killing the enemy? Petty prejudice and tribal hate is the basis for the Klingon/Federation war. If human weaknesses have evolved like you are suggesting the premise of Discovery would not exist. To show human flaws, filtered though a compilation of actors predominately from the productions country of origin, isn't exactly inconsistent with what Star Trek is.
Star Trek is based on the premise humans have overcome poverty, racial prejudice and other discriminatory behaviour between humans. The Star Trek in universe version of Prince Harry marrying a biracial human male, much more less female would not expect to raise a brow on Earth.
However 23rd century Prince Harry marrying a Vulcan would have humans clutching their pearls.
The 'Guess who is coming to dinner' test would feature an alien, not a brown skinned human.
So are there are ginger Princes with blue blood in Star Trek?
Only if they are Andorian
Sarek and Amanda are doing OK...
We don't know how much stick they got from either side.
We know Vulcan kids refered to Amanda as a whore. So there was some stick on the Vulcan side.
Given Syboks parentage, she may the Camilla Parker-Bowles figure.
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